CPJ calls on Sudan to end newspaper censorship

New York, June 7, 2010—The Sudanese government should halt ongoing newspaper
censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today, after at least two
papers failed to appear on newsstands over the weekend.

Abdelgadir said
government censors had become particularly sensitive to stories about an
ongoing physicians’ strike and talks in Kampala concerning the International
Criminal Court. “In the past the red line was Darfur
or human rights violations. Today, we have two additional topics: a doctor’s
strike and the ICC conference in Kampala,”
Abdelgadir said.

When a Sudanese security
agent arrived at the newspaper’s offices on Saturday to review an advance copy
of the paper, Al-Maidan journalists told the officer that the edition
had already gone to press. Security personnel, who act as government censors,
then went to the printing facility and ordered production to stop, Abdelgadir
told CPJ.

The independent daily Ajras al-Huriya did not go to press for three consecutive days, starting on Friday,
because government censors used such a heavy hand, Faiz al-Silaik, the
newspaper’s acting editor-in-chief, told CPJ. So much content was being deleted,
from literature to sports, that the newspaper would be compromised if it went to
press, he said. Stories about the physicians’ strike and the ICC talks were
among those deleted.

“In Sudan, the security officer is the editor-in-chief,” al-Silaik said.
“He decides what runs in the paper and what doesn't.” On Sunday, the newspaper announced that it will
suspend publication for one week to protest the censorship, al-Silaik told CPJ.

Censorship has flared
numerous times in recent years despite government promises
to end the practice. Censorship was tightly enforced
in February 2008 after some newspapers accused the Sudanese government of
backing a failed coup in neighboring Chad. It intensified again after a Darfuri
rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, attacked Omdurman in May 2008. And
censorship flared once more after the International Criminal Court issued an
arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir in 2009, CPJ research shows.

“Khartoum has once again not kept its word
when it comes to ending censorship of critical news,” said
CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed
Abdel Dayem. “The Sudanese authorities have vowed to
end prior censorship twice in the past year, but as last week’s events
illustrate, prior censorship remains a common practice in Sudan.”